Outside Of Our Minds
by everyone'ssister
Summary: AU Season 6. Sam rises from the cage six months after Swan Song with his soul where it belongs. He doesn't know how he got out but his brother is the only thing on his mind. He automatically heads to Bobby's but what he finds there changes everything...When Sam fell something just snapped within Dean. Now six months later Sam's back, but Dean isn't.
1. Chapter 1

OUTSIDE OF OUR MINDS

Prologue.

Sam fell. Two words. Seven letters. So easy to say. Not easy to watch. In fact very difficult to watch. In fact...too difficult. Dean falls to his knees, shoulders shaking, lungs fighting to breathe. He can't even feel his face, he barely saw the heart shattering moment because of his swollen eyes. But he saw enough...

He saw Sam's sweet smile as he fell, as he simply let himself become one with the wind, with the air and happily sacrificed himself. Falling, falling, falling...gone. And Dean was here, alone. Something snaps in him, he didn't even know, doesn't realize. But he knows he can't without Sam, he knows he can't live a life when Sam sacrificed his own. He can't...he was supposed to protect Sammy...that's what dad said, look after Sam, protect Sammy.

This is wrong, this isn't the way it's supposed to be, Dean prayed, okay, _he prayed_. Sam trusted, Sam gave himself up to Lucifer because he didn't want Dean to give in to Michael, because he felt he deserved eternal damnation more than his brother. And Dean made him feel that way every time he'd shown his absolute disgust for the demon blood and the lust for it still alive in his little brother.

He'd been trying to do the right thing...when...where had he gone so wrong? _Sam...Sammy...I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I don't know what happened, I don't know what happened to me, I'm so sorry_.

Cas can bring Bobby back, he can untwist a broken neck, he can heal Dean's face back to its immaculate ruggedness...but he can't fix Dean inside. The promise he'd made to Sam that he would go and make a life for himself can't fix him. Not even himself, no one can. He is shattered, broken...a big part of him doesn't understand what's happened to him and he's just lost amidst the haze of dimmed and numbed pain and confusion.

But a very small part that he buries deep inside knows what has happened to his heart and his mind. Knows that what both brother's knew would happen has happened. One brother is gone and the other has fallen apart at the seams. Sam's absence and the thought of him locked in hell is the string that just keeps pulling and pulling, unraveling as the fabric of his mind disintegrates.

. . .

Chapter 1.

Sam's eyes blink open, stinging with the gritty feeling of being asleep for too long. He grimaces and covers his face with his hands against the bright sunlight. What's that sound? Singing...birds singing. Wind whispering through trees and grass...whispering along his skin. His body erupts in goosebumps as chills run down his spine and up to his neck.

He keeps his eyes closed, bathing in this sudden heaven-like dream. The wind sounds like ocean waves in the trees and the birds echo the beautiful sound. It's so quiet, god, he wishes this was his reality. So quiet, the air so fresh and uninterrupted, alone...he's blissfully, painlessly alone. He feels tears in his eyes at the realization that his body is silent, his nerves not screaming at him in pain. What he would do for this to be his reality.

The peaceful, quiet, safe moment makes him think of Dean. What doesn't make him think of is older sibling? He feels his lips curving in a smile. Dean loved days like this...he loved to sit on the hood of the impala, or sprawl out on the cement leaning against one of her tires and drink beer while wisecracking at Sam and the radio and pretty much everything in life.

He misses that smile. Like a hole through his chest he misses that smile.

His fingers curl into a fist against the pain, against the soul wrenching loneliness, against the cry of agony his very soul lets loose in need of Dean. His hand in a tight fist, he feels dampness, softness between his fingers that gives him pause. He slowly blinks again and opens his eyes to the sun.

The sun, god, the warmth. The light and purity playing over his skin, treating his eyes to natural soothing light. He looks down bewildered to his hand, dirt. Damp, dark soil. That's what he'd grabbed. There in between his fingers, underneath his nails was palpable proof. He sits up up fast, wind catching his hair and the thin t-shirt he's got on.

He buries both hands in the damp grass and dirt before him, grounding himself and confirming this delusion like hope, takes in deep breaths of early morning dewy air. Earth. He's back on earth. He's home.

How?

He doesn't know.

He's in Stull Cemetery sitting there in the same exact place where he'd disappeared. Everything is the same, the gravestones, the trees. Late summer makes the surroundings a little more cheerful. But it's empty, no living being other than himself, the birds, and the insects in sight.

How had he gotten out of the cage, more importantly who got him out? His heart constricts in fear for Dean but in excitement and painfully strong love too. Dean... _I get to see him, I get to be with him again!_ He doesn't care honestly, he just wants that moment, he just wants a few minutes of that sweet reunion and he won't care, you can take him back to the cage again.

 _But please, please let me see Dean._

He pushes himself up and gets to his feet, sways a little once he's six-four in the air again. He rubs his forehead and grimaces as dizziness swims his vision for a bit and his stomach rolls nauseas but growls hungrily at the same time. He shakily begins to make his way out of the cemetery and to the road back towards civilization.

"What the hell is going on, Dean?" He asks out loud. Hoping beyond hope that his big brother and the impala will appear, that Dean's own soul will feel the pull Sam's heart beats faster with right now. But Dean doesn't appear and neither does Baby, Sam hobbles down the road, mind filled with confusion and anxious anticipation to be back by his brother's side once again.

He doesn't know why when he's the one who just got out of hell. But the urgency with which he feels he needs to get to Dean is filling him with dark anxiety. He's restless and excited inside, feeling the bond, tightening and stretching between them, pulling him so strongly it almost hurts. Maybe it's just him, maybe after all this time he just needs to see Dean, feel him safe by his side to be okay again. Either way.

"I'm coming," he mumbles under his breath, searching for road signs, "I'm coming."

. . .

Oddly enough Sam's wallet is in his jeans pocket. He's grateful, but he finds it weird. What had gone down in order to bring him back? And who had done it? He feels certain if it was Dean, his brother would have been there ready and waiting. He shakes off all these questions, knowing asking them to the wind is pointless.

He has just enough money to by water and beef jerky when he makes it to a truck stop. He thumbs his way to South Dakota pouring over news papers in the trucks he rides. Six months. It's been six months. God, it felt so much longer. So much painfully longer. What was that in Hell time? Dean had said four months was like forty years, so sixty years. Sixty years of the devil shattering him, tearing him apart and putting him back together only to do it all over again.

He shakes his head against the dark thoughts and looks out onto the darkening sky, the horizon whizzing by quickly in the truck. A sunset. Had to be the prettiest thing he's ever seen, his hearts swells with the blessed feeling and grateful relief. With a stranger riding beside him in the truck and alone and vulnerable Sam still can't help himself, a few small tears leak out as he falls into an uneasy but much needed sleep.

. . .

The driver shakes him awake at ten p.m. outside of Sioux Falls and Sam drops to his feet from the tall cab of the eighteen wheeler into the cool night. A mumbled thanks is all the kind trucker needs and Sam stands watching as the lonely tail lights disappear leaving him in the dark. It takes more than a quiet night to rattle Sam Winchester though.

He basks in the silence as he starts down the road, beginning the last leg of his journey step by step to Bobby's house. Honestly he didn't know what he expected to find there. Cas and Bobby where dead, he saw, felt Lucifer kill them...that was a whole mourning process he'd yet to tackle, and Dean had promised to go and try an honest start to another life away from all the supernatural and danger. Which would surprise him more that is brother didn't or did try?

He doesn't even know. Now that he takes the time to stop and think, he'll just be thankful if Dean is still alive. After all he'd left his brother hella beat up and with all their friends dead. Dean alone, and no doubt out of his head angry and reckless...it would be a wonder if Dean didn't get at least seriously screwed up by whiskey, women or hunt, take your pick.

So it's with understandable trepidation that Sam slowly but surely makes his way towards Bobby's. There's a nervous lump in his throat as he catches sight of the junk yard sign and his steps unconsciously quicken. _Please be here Dean, please be alive..._

There are lights on inside, making the windows glow. Good sign, Sam says to himself, that's a good sign. The dim light from the security lights in the junkyard reflect on the Impala's perfectly waxed surface pulled up in the yard. He sighs as he runs light fingertips over the familiar cool, metal curves, a smile playing on his lips. Dean was definitely here.

He mindlessly jumps up the stairs to the porch and is raising his hand to the door knob when he hears that tell tale click that his hunter instincts freeze at. He slowly raises his hands in front unthreateningly as his eyes jump trying to find the gun barrel no doubt pointed right at his head.

"You can hold it right there." A gravely voice demands. And Sam's insides freeze and jump all at the same time. There's only one person that voice could belong to.

"Bobby, is that you?" He asks, voice shaking.

"I think I'll be the one asking the questions, starting with why you thought it would be a good idea to come here wearin' Sam Winchester. Because this shot gun is fulla silver and I'm ready to use it."

Sam swallows thickly, how in hell? It was Bobby...how, when had he come back? He'd seen with his own eyes, remembers the twist and the crack. "B, Bobby, it's me, it's Sam for real. Not a shifter I know that's what you're thinking."

"Too bad for you I know that can't be possible." Bobby snarls back.

"Test my eyes, or go ahead and shoot me I don't care...I just wanna see Dean. And I really wanna know what's going on, how the hell are you alive for starters?"

He hisses as a bright light shines straight in his eyes along with a startling splash of water. "Not a demon either Bobby, jesus, I had to walk all the way here, a shifter or a demon would at least come in style." He chuckles drily, as some scuffling noises sound from inside like the old hunter is moving around.

"I woke up this morning in Stull just like this with nothing but the clothes on my back." Sam hears the locks on the other side of the door being undone and then he's staring at the beloved face through the dirty screen door. Untrimmed beard, greasy cap and sharp cold blue eyes.

Sam's smile stretches his whole face, "Shit Bobby, thought I'd never see you again."

"Sam is that really you, son?" Bobby asks, still a little on edge, a lot on guard.

"It's really me Bobby, I swear it."

The older man pushes the screen door open and steps towards the younger Winchester hesitantly. Lighting fast, even too fast for Sam's reflexes, Bobby swipes a silver blade over his forearm. Sam hisses and jerks back, placing his hand over the stinging flesh, feeling the warmth of blood between his fingers.

"Ow, Bobby! I thought we already established that I'm not a shifter."

"Sorry." Bobby mutters, "I can't..." he pauses and looks Sam's face over, his own twisting with strong emotions. "I can't believe it's really you."

"Me neither, really, I don't know what happened." Sam laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

"Come here." Bobby husks out wrapping him in a strong hug, and Sam returns it, allows himself to melt into his father figure. Lets his head rest on his shoulder and close his eyes and sigh with a somewhat safe, relaxed feeling.

"Bobby, how, how are you alive?" He asks, softly as he pulls away, both looking away to hide their happy tears.

"It was Cas."

"Cas is alive too?"

Bobby nods, "He said God brought him back."

"God?" Sam repeats, incredulously, raising his eyebrows dubiously at the older man.

"Yeah, my sentiments exactly." Bobby says drily. "But boy, am I glad you're back."

The younger Winchester returns his soft smile. "Bobby." Sam says, eyes sweeping the kitchen and into the study, "Where's Dean, he's here right?"

Bobby nods, "He's already asleep."

Sam feels the breath leave him a relieved whoosh. "How is he Bobby? It's been six months right?"

Bobby nods and Sam doesn't know what to make of the heavy sigh as he motions for Sam to follow him after closing up the door and throwing all the dead bolts and chain locks. They walk through the house quietly before reaching the door to the bedroom down stairs. Bobby uses his hand to push the door the rest of the way open.

The room is dark but the light filtering through the window from the flood lights in the yard casts streams of illumination across the bed. Dean lays there in the sheets, face pale and unfairly sharp and pretty on the pillow like usual. Something deep and dark purrs and goes back to sleep inside Sam's soul as he lays eyes on his brother again.

His chest rises and falls methodically, deep and peaceful in his sleep, and Sam finds himself echoing the rhythm unconsciously. A smile bends his lips and he just stands there basking in the presence, in the air, the same air that Dean is breathing.

"Is he alright?" Sam asks softly, barely breaking the overlying silence. He stiffens with the significant pause Bobby gives. "Bobby?" He cuts his eyes at the older hunter beside him.

"He's alright yeah Sam, he's different, very different." Bobby sighs, eyes back on his older brother. "You'll have to see for yourself, but he's never been the same after that day...

"C'mon." He says, jerking his head towards the study, "Let's go talk in here, I'm going to need a drink for this."

Sam casts one last worried, starved glance to his sleeping sibling before following Bobby down the hall, leaving the door open. There was going to be no unnecessary barriers between he and his brother ever again, he wanted Dean there, he wanted to be there...no doors, no walls...or hell or heaven.

He collapses on the old familiar couch as Bobby sighs as he sinks into his office chair. The weathered hunter takes off his cap and scratches the back of his head as he pours some liquor into glasses for them both. Sam takes the glass offered him, usually he wouldn't but sixty years in hell, well, let's just say he needs and he thinks he just might deserve it.

"It's kind of hard to explain." Bobby says, leaning all the way back in his chair, sipping on the strong, chest-burning liquor without batting an eye. "It was just like something snapped inside him after you fell Sam, it's the only way I can explain it. He's not like you remember him, he's not...driven at all."

Sam shakes his head, coughing as the swallows back the burning liquid. "Are you saying he's changed or that mentally..."

The look in Bobby's eyes makes Sam's heart tremble and fall through the floor of his chest. "He said his first words three months ago Sam."

"Shit." Sam whispers. His eyes haunted and fixed on the empty hallway leading to his old brother's room. "Has he talk..."

"No, I haven't heard him say your name or talk about you the entire time."

Sam swallows thickly, telling himself he wasn't going to cry when it was obviously Dean who had the important problems. Bobby watches him carefully, pain of his own, and the feeling of the pain of his boys reflecting deep in his eyes.

"He still hunts?" Sam asks, voice a little husky.

"Once." The silence that reigns afterwards cuts away at Sam's heart.

"What happened Bobby?" Sam's heart beats faster thinking of what could have happened to his brother.

"I was too late, is what happened." The old man grunts, his eyes looking haunted and guilty. "By the time I got to him there was only blood and shreds of meat left of that vamp...Sam." Bobby shakes his head shivering, "The way he screamed over that blood, with the adrenaline rushing through his veins...I haven't let him hunt again and he hasn't wanted to either."

"Bobby." Sam says lowly, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and swallowing thickly. "Are you saying, do you think it's mental?"

Bobby sighs heavily again the conversation obviously hard and painful for him to have, he loved and respected Dean so much as hunter and as a man. "I'm saying you're his brother, you know him better than anyone else and if there's anything he needs it's you Sam...but you need to know this is different the anything we've ever dealt with before."

Sam runs fingers through his hair, head swimming with this information.

"He's just...quiet." Bobby says, shuddering, "Except for when he's screaming through the night."

Sam looks up quickly at that, he knows that pain, he's had nightmares before, god knows he's watched Dean battle through a thousand of them.

"He'd been awake for three days and nights straight when I decided I had to do something..."

"He's on meds?" Sam asks, not being able to envision Dean taking medication willingly.

"Just at night, Jody Mills helped me get him a prescription without taking him in. He just can't sleep without them, screams bloody murder all night long." Sam shivers with the haunted far away look in Bobby's eyes as he stares at the walls remembering Dean's agonizing wails.

Sam rubs his face roughly, "Shit, Bobby what are we going to do?"

The older man shakes his head, before getting to his feet. "First you're going to get a full night's sleep. Then tomorrow you can see for yourself, we can see what he does...I honestly can't predict how he's going to react."

"Thanks Bobby." Sam says, "I guess that's all there is to do."

"Goodnight son, and I'm glad your back boy."

"Me too Bobby, me too." Sam gives him a soft smile, "Goodnight."

In the silence Sam tries to take in everything he's just been told. His head swims with it and unconsciously finds himself getting up and making his way back to the room where his sibling lies asleep. The old house creaks while settling for the night and Sam stands in the door way unmoving.

His brother's pale skin glows ethereal in the dim light and Sam wraps his arms around himself before silently making his way into the room. Dean eyes rove under his lids restlessly sometimes but mostly he just rests, still and peaceful, breaths huffing from his slightly parted lips.

It breaks Sam's heart to know the sweet slumber is only the result of drugs. His brother had never slept so well naturally, not ever in his hard, unforgiving life. Sam sits down in the chair close by the bed and lets his chin fall into his hand, elbow propped on the arm rest. He feels so complete here beside his brother, but the knowledge of Dean's suffering shadows it all...fills him once again with an unease he can't fight because jesus, this is Dean...

"It wasn't supposed to end up this way..." he murmurs, the regret and the guilt filling him, washing over him even though he knows there was no other way to save the world and humanity. But damnit...he had not be ready to see the fall out, to deal with the consequences first hand, not when they looked like this.

...tbc

First chapter, what do you think!? REVIEW!?;);)

So yeah, I'm back. And with another AU I couldn't get out of my mind. Enjoy some angst and pain and brotherly goodness with me!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

Sam wakes to the same bright, fresh sunshine that he had the previous morning. He rubs his eyes and blinks up the window behind the couch he was sleeping on. So it was real...he hadn't dreamed it, Lucifer hadn't conjured it up to torture him in a whole new way. He rubs his eyes roughly, adding just a little pain, just enough to ground him and shake him from this If was a dream.

He sighs and lets his body relax into the couch again with his hands still over his eyes when this realty doesn't tremble and melt into the cage. Through the stripes of light his fingers let fall over his eyes Sam accustoms himself to the brightness slowly, the burning of sleepiness slowly fading away. Sounds of life around him finally registering.

Footsteps, the popping and sizzling of bacon...the smell. God, the smell, Sam never thought he'd ever love smell of frying fat so much. He can hear the knocking of eggs against the edge of a bowl until the cracking sound when the shell breaks open. Listens as Bobby whisks them together pausing to throw salt and pepper into the mix.

He goes still, his very heart goes still, as another pair of footsteps calmly pad down the hall and come closer ending with the scraping of a chair being pulled back from the table across the kitchen floor. He hears the wood creak as weight falls into the seat, and the huff of breath that escapes as the person slouches down into the chair, rubbing his eyes and yawning, still not quite awake...

Just like Sam knew he did. Just like Sam had watched him wake thousands of thousands of times.

"Mornin' Dean." He hears Bobby grunt.

"Mornin' Bobby." And it's muttered and soft, grating and deep...but Sam would know it anywhere. The depth and gravel is just like Sam remembers. The softness of the tone, the gentle rumble that Sam feels all the way in the living room. He closes his eyes and lets it wash over him along with all the memories of safety and happiness he ever had.

It makes his soul, his very foundation groan in relief and a sense of completion and belonging... _Dean_.

He's up before he knows what he's doing and standing in the kitchen doorway, eyes locked on Dean's form sitting at the table. The screen door provides light around the older Winchester's sharp profile and Sam just stands there swallowing, feasting his eyes on the sight of his big brother alive and well...literally one step away.

"Dean." He breathes out, thankful and blinking against tears.

Dean's head jerks towards his voice. Wide green eyes landing on the familiar face. Long cheek bones, fox like slanted eyes sparkling with warmth and intelligence, long shaggy hair, soft and tucked behind his ears. It's a sight painfully familiar to Dean. They stare at each other for a silent moment, Sam frozen and Dean obviously struggling to understand the situation.

Dean's fingers wrap surely around the handle of a knife on the table and he lunges for his brother. Sam is still too lost in the moment his eyes dazedly fixed on Dean's face, Bobby catches Dean's wrist and pushes him backwards with all his might, a hand on his chest stepping between the two brothers.

"Dean!" He says calmly straight into his face, "It's him, it's really Sam...I already tested him, he's not a demon or a shifter." He grunts as Dean lunges for Sam again, and Bobby throws a glare at Sam who's still trying to approach.

"Back off Sam, he will kill you." He pushes back against Dean, the hunter grunts as he falls back into his chair and Bobby presses both hands on his chest keeping him down.

"Dean." He speaks evenly, "You're not going to kill you're brother. Now calm the hell down."

Dean goes eerily still under Bobby. His eyes glaring up at the older hunter, eyes that weren't cold, but were void of something...something Sam had always expected to find there...something that was in essence Dean. What is there, what Sam can recognize with painful clarity, because he's seen it in the mirror, felt it cutting in his heart.

Dean's eyes are filled with pain. Soul deep, aching pain. Loneliness that was eating him inside out...fear and confusion pulling him apart. It breaks Sam's heart. What had their decision to put the world before themselves done to them? It was time to see.

Dean's eyes leave Bobby's face and jump to Sam's as the younger Winchester approaches slowly. Bobby eases away from Dean as he doesn't fight anymore, he steps away to give the brother's their space.

"Dean, it's me." Sam says, voice oddly husky, he surprised to feel tears pricking in his eyes. His brother stays silent and Sam swallows thickly. He doesn't know why but he feels like these are the words he needs to speak to Dean...the pure agony he'd read in his brother's clear eyes still rippling pain through himself.

"I am so sorry I left you, I'm so sorry it took me so long to come back." He places a hand on Dean's forearm, fingers wrapping around it, warm flesh and muscle reassuring Sam, making his soul sigh in relief...Dean, here, alive and real.

Dean's eyes are wide and fixed on his younger brother's face, and not a single sound escapes him as he slowly lifts up his hand and Sam is frozen as his brother's rough fingertips slide gently over his cheek bones. Spreading the tears, letting Sam feel cool air against wet skin.

They blink at each other for one moment with terrible clarity. The ache and the torture open and shared between them. Sam catching a glimpse of the twisted, broken insides of the man his brother has become. Dean watches more tears fall from Sam's eyes, run down his cheeks and drop from his chin to absorb into Dean's jeans.

Suddenly the elder Winchester flinches, wrenching his arm from Sam's grasp, he pushes Sam out of the way and walks out of the room. Sam stands there still and staring at the chair his brother had just been sitting in, had just been there and looking at him, letting him in...

He jumps with the sound of the front opening and shutting...he and Bobby look at each other in drowning silence. Emptiness and pain more than anything he'd every experienced in the cage fills him and spreads through his insides like gangrene.

. . .

Sam finds Dean sitting on the dry rotted couch under the lean-to next to the workshop. It'd been there for years, it was disgusting but Sam can remember the two of them hanging out there him doing homework and Dean cleaning guns and running through hard rock radio stations. Sometimes dozing off to a crackling country station and making Sam numb and fuzzy with the security of his slow breaths.

The morning is warming up, the ground still wet with dew and the air clear and fresh with spring. In the over grown weeds around all the junkers and the back of the yard wild flowers bloom and bugs and bees leave their quiet hum as they visit the sweet buds. The sky is huge and blue, clouds like the softest pillows filling it and letting Sam feel that glorious liberty and the ability to actually _breathe_.

He makes his way over to Dean slowly, dragging his boots in the gravel as he thinks of what he should say. He brother sits with his arms wrapped around his stomach, his eyes fixed on something over his left shoulder. Brightest green half strange to Sam with the half-distracted expression in them.

Sam follows his stare searching for what might have his brother's attention but sees nothing but more weeds and rusting vehicle parts. He sighs deeply coming to a stop standing to the right side of Dean next to the couch. He puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket and silence lays between them almost comforting...almost like the way it used to.

Except Sam can see Dean's throat hitch and his breath speed up, his eyes still fixed on the empty overgrown area of land to their left. Where was Dean right now? What was he seeing? What added hell was he being put through? Sam watches as Dean's chest rises faster and faster his fingers fisting in his own jacket.

The obvious sorrow and panic written all over his older sibling's face is too much for Sam to bear, he steps forward once. "Dean." He says softly and watches as his brother simply shivers,

"Dean!" He calls a little louder and the older hunter jumps. His fingers pull on the sides of his coat as he blinks his eyes rapidly and looks around bewilderedly jumping at finding Sam to his right standing there calmly, looking back to his left like he expected something to be there.

"It's just me." Sam says, hands spread out non threateningly. The look on Dean's face isn't comforted, the flashes of emotion, fear and confusion, disappear as Dean closes himself off. Shutting Sam out and leaving rejection smarting intensely in Sam's heart. He rubs his hands together as he comes closer to Dean and his brother shifts uncomfortably on the couch.

"Look," Sam starts, voice gentle. "I know this is a lot to take in. But it's me, it really is...I swear. I'm here."

Dean makes no response but his right hand fists tightly, knuckles going white.

"You don't feel like talking, I get that, you were always that way. But please Dean, don't shut me out, don't make me live without you..." Sam gives self deprecating laugh, "Even though that's exactly what I made you do."

Dean wraps his arms around himself tighter, eyes closing momentarily, a sigh shuddering in his chest.

Sam swallows around the anger at himself, and Dean, swallows down the pain and the way he wants to scream at Dean and shake him until his eyes focus on his little brother's face and just says 'hey' just lets Sam know, I've been aching with missing you too.

"I know what you're thinking." Sam says softly, and Dean tenses. "You're thinking I'm going to be gone tomorrow, you're thinking you're just imagining me...well I'm not going anywhere Dean, and I'm going to keep annoying you and talking to you until you acknowledge me...so please Dean, believe, believe this is real. Believe in me..."

The silence is deafening and Dean's shoulders turned slightly away from him while his body subtly rocks with nervousness slaps Sam in the face like defeat.

. . .

Cas has slowly gotten to know the new version of his best friend. Of the best man he knew. He's learned this new Dean calls out to him unconsciously when the emotions he couldn't control or understand swept down on him like a massive flood. And when Dean reached out to him all those feeling shared between them in a violent, dark river.

At first Cas had been confused and angered by Dean's behavior. But after Bobby asked him to fix what was broken and Cas peered inside the mind of the righteous man...he shuddered at the memory of it. An ocean of blackness, raging and flashing of Sam's face, of the fall, of the moments when he took Sam's and Lucifer's blows willingly.

The moments when they were children and Dean indelibly took on the responsibility of Sam...not only of his safety but of his very happiness. That was the world Castiel found Dean was lost in. Segments of his life let loose into his present reminding him and locking him in the past. And no matter how much Cas tried to mend the pieces together Sam's face, innocently blank while falling falling falling into the darkness of hell undoes it all in one millisecond.

And Dean goes back to being a quiet, scared of himself, broken hunter—brother.

That's what Cas sees mostly. Dean is so scared of himself. He's so ashamed and terrified of the choices he's made and the consequences. And Sam not being there to keep him afloat, to assure him it had all been worth it, for Sam, as long as Sam was alive, Sam was "happy". Now Sam's absence was just a constant reminder that everything Dean had ever done, he'd ever sacrificed for, in his mind, was worthless.

So often as he can when Dean's mind calls to Cas and the angel can feel his terror and confusion and pain over their bond Cas comes flying to his best friend's side. They've spent long hours in silence simply sitting side by side, Cas has spent many a night by Dean's bedside, fingers pressed to his temple seeing those mind numbing, soul crushing last moments of Sam Winchester's life that played in a loop through the elder Winchester's mind.

So when Cas answers to Dean's mental terror stricken scream the last thing he expected to see was the younger Winchester by his side, and alive and whole and very real. The angel's often wistful theory that if Sam came back Dean would be healed of his illness, of his brokenness was immediately crushed.

Whether it was the fear of losing him again, or the fear of being disappointed if Sam wasn't real the righteous man wouldn't open himself, couldn't let all his broken insides come rushing out, either way nothing was resolved and Dean was shattering even more.

...tbc

REVIEW!? ;);)

...yes I'm trash, it took me how many months to write 2,000 words?


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